The Everyday Awesome Project
The Everyday Awesome Podcast is your mega dose of multivitamins for building your mental muscles, physical body and an empowered life. Your hosts Polly and Sam are on your dream team; lifelong coaches in business, health & fitness and human potential. They are on fire to ignite change in the lives they touch.
Subscribe now to your weekly jam session where we walk you through actionable tools, game changing insights and inspiring stories to light the path towards YOUR awesome life.
The Everyday Awesome Project is a movement. We invite you to join our mission to connect and inspire humans to live their full potential and reconnect to themselves and others.
Through our coaching programs, live experiences and weekly podcast we explore what is possible for everyday humans. Their motto is "Every day is a new opportunity to find your AWESOME!"
The Everyday Awesome Project
86: Breaking Through Isolation: The Transformative Power of Circles and Masterminds
Hangout with Coach Polly this week as she asks: 'Have you ever caught yourself spinning in mental circles, trying to solve problems all on your own?" You're not alone! In this revealing solo episode, Coach Polly opens up about her lifetime as a "lone ranger" solopreneur and her transformative discovery that changed everything: the power of speaking her truth in trusted circles.
What I've learned is simple yet profound: our minds can only take us so far. When we speak our thoughts aloud—whether in masterminds, support circles, or even to one trusted friend—something magical happens. Our bodies engage, our intuition awakens, and possibilities expand beyond what we could imagine alone. That internal chaos transforms into clarity, and solutions emerge from unexpected places.
I share why Napoleon Hill's concept of the "mastermind" is more relevant than ever for entrepreneurs and leaders. When multiple minds focus on a challenge, the collective wisdom creates breakthroughs that individual thinking never could. I've witnessed this phenomenon repeatedly in my work with Landmark Education and in my own Circles of Aliveness. Someone invariably offers a perspective that cuts through months of mental struggle in moments.
Most importantly, I explore the mind-body connection that speaking activates. Does your body feel energized when you talk about your dream, or does it contract? This is your internal compass speaking—wisdom that remains dormant when thoughts stay locked in your head. Your gut, your intuition, your emotional intelligence fully engage only when thoughts become spoken words.
Ready to experience this transformation? Find one person you trust and speak a truth you've been holding inside. Notice not just what you say, but how your body responds. This simple practice might be the key to moving from stagnation to action, from isolation to connection. Your voice has power. Your spoken words are where real transformation begins.
Follow Coach Polly @getbusythriving and Coach Sam @thesamanthapruitt
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayawesomeproject
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/everydayawesomeproject
Linktree for ALL THE THINGS: https://linktr.ee/everydayawesomeproject
Website/About Us: https://everydayawesomeproject.com/about-us/
Hey, superstars, welcome back Polly here and no Samantha Pruitt this time. This is a solo episode and today what I want to talk to you about is what I've discovered over a lifetime of being a lone ranger, solopreneur. You know on my own kind of modality and why we need these power circles, why we need masterminds, why we need support circles, whatever that looks like in your life and I. My goal with this is, if you aren't already convinced that you need something to definitely have you understand the power and the benefits that I'm seeing in my life and have seen over the years. I'm seeing in my life and have seen over the years. I'm just I'm getting more and more clear about like the criticality of it and that is you know, when we're we're, we're on our own, we're flying solo. If you've got your own business, if you're, even if you're a business owner and you have a team, you can still feel like you're, you know you're, you're the owner, so you operate at a different level. The things that are going on for you. People are counting on you, you're making a lot of the vision and the plans, or if it's just you operating in your business, it can feel very isolating, right, and so I want to share with you a lot of what I've been discovering and have discovered over the years about the power of masterminds, support circles, women's circles, whatever you want to call it.
Polly Mertens:It's no longer a nice to have right, and so what I wanted to get is, like, you know, I used to think that you know all these thoughts that I had and you know working things out in my mind, like I could sort all this out and I can right. You know, we like to think like, oh, this mind is this powerful supercomputer. It can help us with our thoughts, our dreams. You know it's all up in their head and logically figure it out. You know, I hear that a lot that figure it out. When I hear that these days, I'm like, oh no, you're all up in your head. Your intuition, your solar plexus, your, you know, your higher consciousness is not in the driver's seat, right. So you know I'd sit with a problem, turn it over and over, and I can't tell you how many hours, days, weeks of thinking I could, you know, sort things out on my own I've spent. And looking back, it's like what a fucking waste of time Now that I see how quickly things can get resolved how fast new ideas, speculation, ideas, possibilities can come just by having a conversation, by having someone else listen, and I'll share with you those ideas.
Polly Mertens:But something magical happens when we take those inner thoughts and concerns, worries what ifs, you know, whatever? And we speak them out loud, you know, to a trusted group, even to some other person, even in a conversation with one other person. It's like, you know, the switch flips and the problem is no longer just like this mental puzzle that we're, like Rubik's cubing, solving, you know, like mental masturbation, right, it becomes this shared experience and then, like our whole body, our intuition and our emotions get to weigh in. Right, it's not just everything that's going on, because when a thought is happening, you know, when you're having a thought inside your mind, I don't know about you, but I can have some relativity, I can have some experience of it in my body. But if it's a problem that I'm trying to solve, or like visioning or coming up with something, just doesn't work like that for me. You know, some people get these wild, imaginative, beautiful visions and they can just, you know, solely come up with it, but I find that it's limited. The possibility, the expansiveness, the boundlessness of it really isn't fully expressed or experienced even by the person having the idea until it's shared. So that's we're going to dive in today. You know, talking about the powerful support circle is one of the most transformative things you can bring into your life and to your dreams, you know, and has everything to do with the power of your own voice. So one of the things I want to hit upon here is the power of what Napoleon Hill said in his Think and Grow Rich, which is the power of the mastermind. You know, a brain trust. So when you have more minds on a problem or an idea or a vision or even a dream, it's like you suddenly don't feel like you're alone and just having more brains working on it. So I have seen this and right now I'm in a landmark education.
Polly Mertens:I highly recommend the team management and leadership program. It's been amazing for me when my team comes together and we work on, we spotlight somebody who's got a problem in their business or their project or whatever they're working on, and people come together. It's amazing. I'm always sparked Like even three, four, five people coming together. You don't need a big group. You know we can like what about this and what about that and what about this? And I'm always amazed that somebody will come in and have something I never thought of, like you know. You think, oh, like I, we have all the ideas. Well, it's amazing where somebody can come out of left field and be like whoa, that was that really could move that project forward or that business idea forward.
Polly Mertens:So you know, it's not just about getting advice, it's new perspectives, different life experiences and just it's creative solutions you never would have thought of on your own. So just sharing your ideas, and you know it's in a trusted circle. This isn't just, you know, putting it out on the web, on social media. That can be, depending on your audience and who you're talking to, but you know that trusted circle talking to, but you know that trusted circle. And so you know, like starting a new business, for example, or wanting to grow something or change something in your business, you know in a circle. You know you might have an idea or like, hey guys, I'm wanting to do this. Or like I've got a marketing angle I've not considered before, and people can just come at it in totally different ways and different ideas. Like last night we were speculating on how to support someone who was wanting to get an idea, her nonprofit to go viral and it was like, well, what about this and what about that? And just everybody's had different experiences and really coming up with things she hadn't thought of before.
Polly Mertens:It's new possibilities and inside of my Come Alive program, what I can clearly see is, you know, with vulnerability, with authenticity, you can just tap into the heart of what matters most and especially if people are on the same wavelength and same plane as you, same frequency, I would say, the deepness, the richness of understanding, and just sometimes we just need to be heard. It's like, oh, I got this problem, and if somebody can really get you, the problem doesn't seem to be like a problem. Like sometimes we just need to be gotten and someone to just hear, like, oh, I'm struggling with this, and somebody just say, wow, yeah, that's, that's a really big thing you're up to, I get it, I totally get it. And you're like, yeah, like it, like settles us into it, like, okay, I got this Right and you know.
Polly Mertens:Next one I want to tell you about is like I have just seen in my own life the power of speaking. I have just seen in my own life the power of speaking of like hearing your own truth. So there's a distinction I want to make here between like thinking and speaking. So I don't know about your thoughts, but, man, my thoughts can sometimes be chaotic, contradictory, run around in circles. But when you have to like, speak it and share it with somebody, like, your brain has to go. Okay, let me formulate this into a sentence or a thought, into something that I can translate to somebody, even if it's muddled, like just putting the words together.
Polly Mertens:Sometimes just clarity comes from hearing my own truth for the first time, like, oh, wow, that is that's, you know. Or falsity. Like I can speak something that my mind's been, you know, just titillating over and ruminating on and overanalyzing. And when I share it with somebody, even like, thinking of, like, oh, I'll call that person, oh, I got to like, formulate the thoughts to like, tell them what I want to talk to them about. And it's just amazing how it can start to not just get more linear, but I can get more cohesion. It's like, oh, the thought isn't just randomized like, like, like you know, just spit all over the place, and it's just, it's like, oh, I got to like start to create some cohesion. It's like some organizing it if you will.
Polly Mertens:And when you literally hear your own thoughts for the first time, it's like, oh, is that true, right. And so there's this mind-body link, right? When we simply just sit and think our own thoughts, man, we're just stuck in the logical mental realm, the logical mental realm. But when we speak it, our body has the opportunity to listen and you can hear the energy behind your own words, like the speaking of it. Your body starts to interact with yourself. Does your body feel excited and energized when you talk about your dream, or this idea, or this thought that you had, or this thing you've been ruminating on, you know? Check in with your body. Does it start to feel like anxious? Is it constricted? This is your body's wisdom responding and it's profound feedback loop that is, by design, part of, I think, what this body is designed for is for us to interact with it, to resonate with.
Polly Mertens:When we hear, when we vibrate, when we have a frequency, you know and words are a frequency, right Whether they're spoken, screamed, shouted, sung, whatever, in that frequency with which the intent behind them and they're delivered, then our body has an opportunity to go oh, how does that feel, how does that resonate, right? And you just can't get that when just a thought, a thought, a thought, thinking, thinking, thinking. Okay, you know, I do see there are some benefits. Sometimes I have to journaling, but it's so much more powerful when you speak it and the frequency, the words, the vibration comes out of your mouth. And so you know the simple practice of like.
Polly Mertens:Sometimes some people like think out loud. You know you can try this. I find that, you know, maybe doing talking out loud with yourself, asking yourself questions that you can respond to, but really being in a trusted circle where you feel safe and vulnerable and they're picking it up, Like there's something about other people's listening to that can have a profound impact on how you feel about what you even say, right. And then there's that whole gut thing, right. So our emotional and spiritual response, our gut, that plays in right. So speaking your truth out loud also allows you to tap into that emotional and spiritual intelligence we call our gut or our solar plexus, right, this is where your intuition resides.
Polly Mertens:You know, one of my favorite questions about something, you know, if you're finding yourself questioning like should I be doing this anymore? Is this the right direction? Is this serving me? You know, samantha and I did an episode and it's like is this serving me? And sometimes, is this serving me now, right, because something may have served you before but it may not be serving you now. And you know, when you ask a question out loud, you're not just asking your mind, You're asking your whole being, your body's physical response, whether it's like oh, like I'm excited or yeah, yeah, like I feel at peace with that, I feel calm or do you feel unease, like your body is going to tell you what, what is right or not right for you. Right, I think this is sometimes I call this like your inner compass, your true north right, like where your real truth, your knowing, resides.
Polly Mertens:And you know, when one person in a circle or in a mastermind group speaks their truth, man, there is something powerful and how it opens up and it gives other people permission to do the same right. There's this beautiful serendipity and magic that happens when somebody is vulnerable and I'd say vulnerability begets vulnerability. So, speaking, a space for deeper connection and collective growth really is, I would say, like what I'm up to and what my circles of aliveness are about and where we're going with things is, you know, giving people an opportunity to, not just at that superficial level, like man. There's so much damn superficial in the world, like how's the weather and how the kids and how the da-da-da-da right Ever, whatever but, like, what we really long for is that deeper, vulnerable connection where we can have our inner tender parts, our yummy, soft centers, be seen and be heard and felt and feel them for ourselves right. Heard and felt and feel them for ourselves right. And then it gives it space to open up and be heard and seen. And, boy, as human beings, there's just something that we long for for, that connection of you know, being someone getting us right. And so, you know, definitely, samantha and I are up to creating I call them circles of aliveness, right, it's where we can feel for our inner truth, we can feel for what makes us come alive and feel vitality and energy and what sucks it right, like what takes that away. So, you know, you can create these on your own. I would love for you to join us and what we're up to. I would love for you to join us and what we're up to. But if you, you know, just want to create it with a small nucleus of people in your life, start small, like the circle doesn't have to be a formal group. It can be one or two trusted friends who are also on a path of growth, like you, right, or somebody that you just really resonate with, and then find more people that you really resonate with, and so you know, I think, a couple of things.
Polly Mertens:If you do decide to create your own, you know, circles, whatever you want to call them there's definitely in my experience, they can get very off track, they can get very meandering. I find that one of the true tests for me is if people come back to it over and over again. If they invest their energy, their life force, their time, energy and soul into a group, it's because they want to get value out of it, because there's something in it for them. Otherwise they'll stop showing up, right? So don't just you know, I mean in the beginning, if you don't have a clear intention on how to do this, just come up with something that's like, oh, I want us to have.
Polly Mertens:Like there was a woman in my town who created these wise women circles, right, and they were really guided or really meant for younger women, younger moms, let me say, who are going through that phase of, you know, pre-kid, kid, first kid, second kid, and just that whole area of life that women go through and navigating that so that they can have another voice besides their kids all day long. And the husband and you know just the chores and the house and the kids and the kids and the kids right, and so that beautiful circle has given those women a place that they can be heard as intelligent and powerful and connection and broken down and like, lift them back up, right. So whatever yours is, so maybe it's a dream storming group, it could be a book club, just simply monthly check-ins with close friends. This gives your circle some purpose. So you know my circles of aliveness are really about, you know, helping people get out of the way of any stuckness, old limiting beliefs, just anything that's in the way of them feeling vital and alive and powerful. So you know the importance in these circles is trust and confidentiality, number one. You know a true circle is judgment-free people. You know there to lift each other up, not to fix each other but to be heard and seen for powerful, beautiful people. And I people you know there to lift each other up, not to fix each other but to be heard and seen for powerful, beautiful people. And I say, you know there's nothing wrong here. Everyone's whole, complete and perfect. And you know the circles of aliveness we have, whether you look at our Come Alive program, which is really helping people have something that may be stuck in their life, or they want to pivot and there's something they want to get up to and be taking action, and that's what you know the Come Alive program is all about. But you can also have circles that are designed for, you know, just true support. Or you know, like I've seen, writer circles, which are great, or creativity circles, which is people being creative and putting us in a setting aside time for themselves.
Polly Mertens:So, you know, if there's one thing I want you to take away from this episode is your voice has power. Speaking your ideas, speaking your thoughts so much more powerful than just hearing them in your own voice. Right, your words are where the real transformation begins, your spoken words, you know. So this week, find one person you trust and speak your truth. Like, just feel around and see how it is.
Polly Mertens:Maybe there's an idea you've been, you know, pondering, or there's something that you've been ruminating on for way too long and it's time somebody hears about it, or you like hear yourself about it and get those you know not bald jumbled ideas out into the world so that you can hear it, you can feel it, somebody else can listen to it and so maybe share a dream you've been holding on to or a problem that's just been going over and over and over in your head like, like, stop it. It's not just what you're saying, but how your body responds. Right, and I promise you, speaking it, hearing it, having it be heard and seen whether you need ideas, you need feedback. You just need to hear yourself. That's going to get you one step closer to coming alive in your life. Right, and there's neuroscience behind this. I can give you all day long the power of this, but really, just from my own life and seeing it over and over again, it works okay.
Polly Mertens:So that's your homework for today. Notice where there's something that you've been ruminating on, you've been sitting with, you haven't been speaking about, and talk to it with someone. Or look into our Come Alive program, look into our Power Circles. Come join us. Don't just let those dreams, those ideas, live inside of you. Get them out. Get them out into the world. The possibilities will grow even bigger than you can imagine. So, as we always do here at the Everyday Awesome Project. I remind you how your life feels is way more important than how it looks, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
